ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION: WHY THE PROTECTION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT S ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE SHOULD BE APPLIED TO ADULTS

Transcription

1 ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION: WHY THE PROTECTION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT S ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE SHOULD BE APPLIED TO ADULTS Imagine the following scenario: After struggling to find a teaching position, a Midwesterner is fortunate enough to find employment in a public school, though it requires him to relocate over 1,000 miles to the Gulf Coast. On the morning of his first day as a teacher, he wakes with a sense of excitement and anxiety; the district convocation will be his first interaction with his colleagues. As he walks into the high school auditorium, he is amazed by the buzz of the nearly one thousand district employees in the room. The teacher takes a seat in the section reserved for his campus and makes some brief introductions to the people around him. Two gentlemen one of whom he later learns is the school board president stroll to the stage. A hush settles over the room. The board president then grabs the microphone and asks the audience to rise for the prayer to be given by the minister beside him. The teacher s heart skips a beat. Though he belongs to a religious denomination, he feels strongly that it is wrong for the school to be leading a prayer. What should he do? Should he stand silently? Should he walk out or remain seated, and, if so, how will his colleagues react? Will he be labeled a troublemaker? Will he be harassed or ostracized? Could there be employment ramifications because he is a probationary employee and can be non-renewed without any explanation? Does the Constitution allow public schools to sponsor or endorse such prayers? The situation described is not merely a fanciful law school hypothetical; it is a personal experience of this author and represents an undeveloped area in Establishment Clause jurisprudence. There have been numerous school prayer cases before the courts, but these cases have primarily focused on the rights of students, not teachers. 1 In fact, on at least one occasion, the Supreme Court expressly noted that it was not addressing whether its Establishment Clause 1. Warnock v. Archer, 380 F.3d 1076, 1080 (8th Cir. 2004). See also Alexander A. Minard, Note, But Could They Pray at UVA? The Fourth Circuit s Application of the Supreme Court s School Prayer Jurisprudence to the Virginia Military Institute s Adult Cadets, 13 WM. & MARY BILL RTS. J. 997, 1022 (2005) (noting that Justice Scalia argued the Court should grant certiorari and review Mellen v. Bunting, 327 F.3d 355 (4th Cir. 2003), to determine whether the principles of Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), applied to adults). 591

2 592 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 jurisprudence would be the same if applied to adults. 2 One exception is the case of Warnock v. Archer. In Warnock, the Eighth Circuit held that the Devalls Bluff Arkansas Public School District violated the Establishment Clause by offering prayers at mandatory teacher functions. 3 Strangely, despite the absence of case law in this area, Warnock has largely been ignored by courts and scholars. Nevertheless, Warnock provides an opportunity to explore how the Establishment Clause applies to adults. One of the underlying concerns of the courts in school Establishment Clause cases is that students at elementary and secondary schools are minors in a position of relative powerlessness and high impressionability and are therefore susceptible to religious coercion. 4 The implication is that adults cannot be coerced. The Eighth Circuit seems to have embraced this notion in Warnock, for although it held that the school district violated the Establishment Clause by endorsing religion, it brushed aside the plaintiff s arguments that the prayers created a coercive environment. 5 The court found it unlikely that the plaintiff could be coerced given that he was an adult and a contractual employee. 6 The Warnock court was correct, under Supreme Court precedent, in finding the school district s actions unconstitutional, even without any degree of coercion. 7 However, the argument that adults cannot be coerced is troubling as it trivializes and overlooks the potential ramifications (e.g., ostracism, harassment and employment-related consequences) of not conforming to a mode of worship chosen by the school community. 8 In making this argument, the Warnock court failed to see that government endorsement of religion is inherently coercive. That is, government endorsement of religion sends the message that religious minorities and non-believers are outsiders; it creates a divisive environment where minority groups must choose either to conform to the majority s religious views or risk ostracism, harassment or worse. This comment argues that the protections of the Establishment Clause are not age-dependent but should be applicable to teachers and other adults in 2. Weisman, 505 U.S. at 593. After discussing the unconstitutionality of forcing a student to choose between participating in a religious exercise at graduation or protesting and thereby risking alienation, the Court stated: We do not address whether that choice is acceptable if the affected citizens are mature adults.... Id. 3. Warnock, 380 F.3d at Minard, supra note 1, at Warnock, 380 F.3d at Id. 7. See, e.g., Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 430 (1962). 8. Also troubling is the fact that courts have embraced the idea that adults are immune to coercion without any scientific evidence to support such an assertion. See Deanna N. Pihos, Assuming Maturity Matters: The Limited Reach of the Establishment Clause at Public Universities, 90 CORNELL L. REV. 1349, (2005).

3 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 593 public schools. Extending the protection to adults is consistent with the central purpose of the Establishment Clause as espoused by the Supreme Court: to prevent religious divisiveness and persecution. 9 In our increasingly pluralistic society, 10 this purpose grows ever more important. Part I offers a brief historical background on the creation of the Establishment Clause. It then traces the evolution of Establishment Clause jurisprudence and focuses on school prayer cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the reasoning behind the Court s opinions. Part II examines the case history in Warnock and compares its jurisprudence with the school prayer cases from Part I. The section then contrasts Warnock with Establishment Clause jurisprudence in cases involving adults in other settings, which include higher education and prisons, and offers the author s critiques as to the jurisprudence in each. Part III discusses the importance of extending the protections of the Establishment Clause to adults. It illustrates the consequences that individuals must face when challenging government endorsement of religion, addresses the troubling realities facing religious minorities and non-believers today, and concludes that the Warnock court s decision to ignore the coercive element of schoolendorsed prayer could have disastrous consequences for religious dissenters. I. A SURVEY OF ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE JURISPRUDENCE THE SUPREME COURT AND SCHOOL PRAYER A. The Historical Foundation of the Establishment Clause The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof The meaning of these clauses has been hotly debated, but such was not always the case. As one scholar has noted, [t]he great enigma of the Religion Clauses... is the fact that they occasioned so little discussion during their enactment. 12 The Constitution contained no reference to God or religion other than to prohibit religious tests for officeholders. 13 It is possible that this 9. See, e.g., Engel, 370 U.S. at According to a 2007 estimate, the breakdown of religious affiliation in America is as follows: Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4%. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, THE WORLD FACTBOOK (2008), available at the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html. See also Membership of Religious Groups in U.S., in THE WORLD ALMANAC AND BOOK OF FACTS 2008, at (Readers Digest Trade Publishing 2008) (1868). 11. U.S. CONST. amend. I JAMES HITCHCOCK, THE SUPREME COURT AND RELIGION IN AMERICAN LIFE 29 (2004). 13. RONALD B. FLOWERS, THAT GODLESS COURT? SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON CHURCH-STATE RELATIONSHIPS 16 (2d ed. 2005).

4 594 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 silence stemmed from the fact that the Framers of the Constitution found the topic too divisive. 14 Whatever the reason, the godlessness of the Constitution troubled some Christians. 15 When it became clear that a Bill of Rights was necessary to secure ratification of the Constitution, the protection of religious freedom was one of the amendments presented to Congress by James Madison. 16 Details on the creation and adoption of the First Amendment s religion clauses are scant. 17 The only record of the debate in the House of Representatives is an unofficial summary drawn from accounts found in contemporary newspapers, and the Senate debated the amendment in secret. 18 However, based upon recorded votes, it is clear that the Senate rejected other potential versions of the amendment that would have allowed government to aid religion on a non-preferential basis. 19 To understand the foundation of the Court s Establishment Clause jurisprudence, it is also important to briefly discuss two key documents: James Madison s Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) and Thomas Jefferson s 1802 letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut. In the former, Madison outlined his opposition to a bill before the Virginia legislature that would have established a tax to support Christian ministers in the state. 20 The bill, sponsored by Patrick Henry, would have allowed taxpayers to choose which Christian sect or denomination would receive the money HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at Id. 16. PETER IRONS, GOD ON TRIAL (2007). The amendment was originally the third of seventeen amendments proposed by Madison. Id. at FLOWERS, supra note 13, at Id.; LEONARD W. LEVY, THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE: RELIGION AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT (2d ed. rev., Univ. of N.C. Press 1994) (1986). For a full account of the House debate, see LEVY, supra, at Levy notes that some of the problems with the House report were that reporters took few shorthand notes and often filled in the gaps by relying upon their memories, which sometimes produced inconsistent accounts. Id. at FLOWERS, supra note 13, at 17. One of the proposed versions stated: Congress shall make no law establishing one religious sect or society in preference to others. Id. Not everyone agrees that the First Amendment was intended to prevent Congress from aiding religious groups, provided it did so on a non-preferential basis. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 106 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). For a rejection of the non-preferentialist argument, see LEVY, supra note 18, at , and Douglas Laycock, Nonpreferential Aid to Religion: A False Claim About Original Intent, 27 WM. & MARY L. REV. 875 (1986). For those interested in the nonpreferentialist argument, see generally DANIEL L. DREISBACH, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE WALL OF SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE (2002) and ROBERT L. CORD, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: HISTORICAL FACT AND CURRENT FICTION (1988). 20. FLOWERS, supra note 13, at Id.

5 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 595 Madison attacked the bill on multiple fronts. One of his objections was that the tax would incite conflict between religious groups; that it would destroy the moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion, has produced History had shown that governmental establishment of religion caused tremendous bloodshed. This bill threatened to do the same. Who does not see, Madison asked, that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? 23 The bill was a signal of persecution, as it implied that those who held religious beliefs different from those in political power did not enjoy the same standing within the community. 24 Though Madison conceded that the establishment here was a far cry from religious persecutions throughout history, he contended that the bill represented merely a beginning, a stage of religious persecution: Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance. 25 In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson received a letter from the Danbury Baptists. In the letter, the Baptists voiced their displeasure at having to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church, the established church of Connecticut. 26 Jefferson s response did not address whether it was improper for a state to establish a religion. However, Jefferson noted his agreement that religion should be a personal matter, adding: I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion... thus building a wall of separation between church and state. 27 It is debatable whether Madison and Jefferson believed in a strict separation of church and state 28 or whether their views on the subject even truly matter. 29 After all, Jefferson was not present at the Constitutional 22. James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, reprinted in STEVEN G. GEY, RELIGION AND THE STATE 7 (2d ed. 2006). 23. Id. at Id. at 6 ( It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. ). 25. Id. 26. IRONS, supra note 16, at LEVY, supra note 18, at 246 (quoting the Letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association (Jan. 1, 1802)). 28. See, e.g., HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at Saint Louis University History Professor James Hitchcock cautions that a strict separationist view was not universally accepted even in Virginia. Id. at See, e.g., id. at 28. Justice William Brennan was among those who believed that the original intent of the Founders could not be known with any certainty. Moreover, Justice Brennan maintained that, even if the original intent of the Founders could be determined, it would

6 596 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 Convention, nor did he help draft the First Amendment. 30 Furthermore, Madison s actions such as his support for congressional chaplains and his presidential proclamations of official days of thanksgiving did not always comport with his strict separationist rhetoric, though he later lamented that these actions had been unconstitutional. 31 Madison characterized his support for governmental endorsement of religion as a failure to live up to the ideals of the Constitution, a failure that was the product of political pressure during exigent circumstances. 32 Whether Madison or Jefferson truly advocated a strict separation between church and state is beyond the scope of this comment; what is important is that the strict separationist rhetoric embodied in the aforementioned documents became central to the Supreme Court s Establishment Clause jurisprudence. 33 B. Students, School Prayer, and the Supreme Court The Court Looks to Madison and Jefferson Any attempt to synthesize the Supreme Court s reasoning in school prayer cases into a manageable and consistent jurisprudence is tricky at best. 34 Ironically, our starting point, Everson v. Board of Education, 35 is a case that did not concern school prayer. Moreover, the case s novelty is not just that it incorporated the Establishment Clause into the Fourteenth Amendment and established modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence; 36 it was also the first time a Supreme Court justice expressly relied upon the personal beliefs of Jefferson and Madison to interpret the Establishment Clause. 37 It might seem surprising to many law students today that, until the late nineteenth century, the Court rarely looked to the Founders for guidance on not be particularly relevant or useful given the changes that have taken place in American society. Sch. Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring). 30. See HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at Id. at Madison confessed his regret in a private memorandum written after the end of his presidency. The memorandum was discovered over a century later. Id. at Id. at 27 ( [H]e saw his acquiescence... as lapses from principle, dictated by the particular circumstances of the time, such as the War of 1812, while he was president. ). 33. Id. at See e.g. Warnock v. Archer, 38 F.3d 1076, 1080 (8th Cir. 2004) (stating that the Court s use of various tests to determine Establishment Clause violations complicates making such determinations); Minard, supra note 1, at 1000 (noting the inconsistency of the Court s jurisprudence). 35. Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1 (1947). 36. HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at 5; LEVY, supra note 18, at However, Peter Irons argues that the First Amendment s religious clauses were effectively incorporated in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), though the opinion was in fact restricted to the Free Exercise Clause. IRONS, supra note 16, at HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at 6.

7 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 597 constitutional interpretation of the religion clauses. 38 It was not until the 1878 Mormon polygamy cases that the Court considered the opinion of the Founders as normative with respect to the First Amendment s religious clauses. 39 Thereafter, until 1947, the Court largely ignored the Founders intent when interpreting these clauses. 40 Everson changed that and made the intent of the Founders an integral part of Establishment Clause jurisprudence. 41 In Everson, the Court addressed whether a local school board violated the Constitution by authorizing reimbursement to parents for expenses they incurred sending their children to school on the public bus transportation system. 42 The plaintiff, asserting his standing as a taxpayer, alleged the reimbursement violated the Establishment Clause because parents who used the public school buses to send their children to parochial schools were also reimbursed. 43 Finding no constitutional violation, the Court reasoned that the money was not used to support religious schools but was a general program intended to help all children get to school. 44 Writing for the Court, Justice Hugo Black noted that although colonists had come to America for religious freedom, many of these same colonists had themselves persecuted religious dissenters. 45 Justice Black contended that such persecution, combined with resentment over taxes to support established churches, caused many Americans to believe that government should not be involved in religion. 46 He reminded the Court that Madison had assailed a similar tax in Memorial and Remonstrance. 47 Additionally, Justice Black pointed out that the Court had previously recognized that the First Amendment was intended to provide the same protection against governmental intrusion that Madison and Jefferson had secured in Virginia. 48 According to Justice Black, the purpose of the Establishment Clause was to suppress the evils caused by governmental endorsement of religion namely religious strife and persecution. 49 Justice Black laid out a broad interpretation of the Establishment Clause: The establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither 38. Id. at Id. 40. Id. at Id. at Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 3 4 (1947). 43. Id. 44. Id. at Id. at Id. at Everson, 330 U.S. at Id. at Id. at See also HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at 5 6.

8 598 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church... or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. 50 Drawing upon Thomas Jefferson s letter to the Danbury Baptists, Justice Black invoked Jefferson s statement that the First Amendment constituted a wall of separation between Church and State. 51 Justice Black maintained that this wall must be kept high and impregnable, and not even the slightest breach could be allowed. Here, he found no breach. 52 Though it may seem strange given the modern debate over the meaning of the Establishment Clause, there was no disagreement on the Court regarding Justice Black s interpretation; 53 the disagreement was over the application of the principles Black announced. 54 The four dissenting justices concurred with the strict separationist view of the First Amendment but rejected the conclusion that there had been no breach. 55 Justice Wiley Rutledge s dissent, joined by every justice in the minority, drew expressly on the views of James Madison to explain the meaning of the Establishment Clause. Viewing the First Amendment as a compact and exact summation of Madison s beliefs forged during his long struggle for religious freedom, 56 Justice Rutledge declared that the intent behind the clause was not merely to prevent Congress from establishing a national church or religion. 57 Rather, the Founders intended the Establishment Clause to completely sever all ties between church and state and to prohibit every form of public aid or support for religion. 58 C. School Prayer and Government Endorsement The Supreme Court first addressed the issue of school prayer in Engel v. Vitale. 59 The controversy arose when the New Hyde Park School Board decided that a 22-word prayer written by the New York State Board of Regents (Regents) would be recited daily in its schools. 60 The Regents recommended that all schools adopt the prayer as a way to instill moral and spiritual values in 50. Everson, 330 U.S. at Id. at 16 (citing Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 164 (1878)). 52. Id. at HITCHCOCK, supra note 12, at Id. 55. LEVY, supra note 18, at 151 (quoting Everson, 330 U.S. at (Rutledge, J., dissenting)). 56. Everson, 330 U.S. at 31 (Rutledge, J., dissenting). 57. Id. at Id. at 32 (emphasis added). 59. FLOWERS, supra note 13, at Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 422 (1962).

9 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 599 students. 61 Due to the religious diversity in New York, the Regents intended to write a nonsectarian prayer that would encompass all religions and denominations. 62 Though the prayer was to be recited by each class in the presence of a teacher, 63 school district policy allowed students to be excused from saying the prayer upon written request of their parents. 64 Ten students, through their parents, challenged the prayer s constitutionality by arguing that it violated the Establishment Clause. 65 The state courts upheld the use of the prayer provided that students would not be required to participate. 66 On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed and ruled that New York had violated the Establishment Clause by encouraging religious activity in public schools. 67 Writing again for the Court, Justice Black rejected the argument that the prayer was justified based upon our country s religious heritage. 68 Rather, Justice Black stated that it was this very practice of government prescribing religious orthodoxy that caused many colonists to leave England. 69 Examining the history of religion in America from colonial times through the adoption of the Bill of Rights, Justice Black concluded that, at a bare minimum, the Establishment Clause prohibits states from compos[ing] official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government. 70 The fact that the prayer was non-denominational and that students could either remain silent or leave the room failed to cure the constitutional defects. 71 Though courts must find some element of governmental coercion to find a violation of the Free Exercise Clause, the Establishment Clause has no such requirement. 72 Simply by endorsing religion, New York violated the Establishment Clause. Nevertheless, the Court did not dismiss the notion that governmental endorsement of religion can be coercive. It noted that history had shown that state endorsement of religion and coercion go hand-in-hand, that [w]hen the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon 61. Id. 62. FLOWERS, supra note 13, at Engel, 370 U.S. at FLOWERS, supra note 13, at Engel, 370 U.S. at Id. 67. Id. at Id. at Id. 70. Engel, 370 U.S. at Id. at Id.

10 600 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain. 73 In his concurrence, Justice William O. Douglas disagreed with the argument that the prayer was coercive. 74 Justice Douglas contended that the students were not compelled to recite the prayer and could leave the room without fear of retaliation. 75 Because students could opt out, only teachers were required to recite the prayer, and none of them was complaining. 76 Justice Douglas did not find the prayer inherently coercive either. After all, Justice Douglas reasoned, adults were compelled to witness prayers delivered at the opening of Congress and the Supreme Court, yet these prayers passed constitutional muster. 77 Perhaps responding to Justice Douglas, the majority conceded that the establishment of religion in this case (composing a brief prayer that was to be recited) paled in comparison to historical religious persecution. However, it revived Madison s argument from Memorial and Remonstrance that a government that could prefer Christianity to another religion could also prefer one Christian denomination to another. 78 Thus, the Court embraced a slippery slope argument; that any governmental endorsement, any crack in the wall of separation of church and state, would ultimately lead to the type of religious establishment and coercion that the First Amendment had been intended to prevent. Only one year after Engel, the Court again confronted the issue of school prayer. In School District v. Schempp, the Court ruled that a Pennsylvania statute requiring the daily reading of Bible verses in public schools violated the Establishment Clause. 79 Each day in Abington Senior High School, a student in the school s television and radio class would choose and recite ten verses from the King James Version of the Bible to be broadcast over the school s intercom. 80 Per state law, no comments, questions or explanations regarding the verses were made. 81 The recitation of the Bible verses was followed by the 73. Id. at 431 (emphasis added). 74. Id. at 438 (Douglas, J., concurring). 75. Engel, 370 U.S. at 438 (Douglas, J., concurring). 76. Id. This raises interesting questions that go to the heart of this comment: Do adults have the same rights under the Establishment Clause? Is there no constitutional violation unless one complains? Can we assume the teachers silence meant that they were in favor of the prayer? 77. Id. at Id. at Sch. Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 203 (1963). Schempp involves companion cases. In the other case, Madalyn Murray, an atheist, and her son challenged a Baltimore statute that allowed recitation of the Lord s Prayer as well as the reading of Bible versus. Id. at 211. My focus here is on the Schempp family. 80. Id. at Id.

11 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 601 Lord s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, again broadcast over the intercom. 82 In schools without an intercom system, the procedure was generally the same, except the teachers would choose the Bible verses to be read, which would then be read aloud in class. 83 Though the Pennsylvania law allowed students to be excused from the Bible reading or to leave the room upon written request of their parents, 84 Edward Schempp who believed the practice conflicted with his family s Unitarian views and violated their religious liberty found this remedy inadequate. 85 Schempp expressed concern that those religious dissenters who left the room would find their relationships with their peers and teachers damaged. 86 He feared his children would be labeled odd-balls or atheists, a term that carried with it the image that one was a communist or un- American, with overtones of possible immorality. 87 The State defended the Bible reading on the grounds that it did not favor any one specific Christian denomination, 88 and that it had secular purposes, which included the promotion of morality and the teaching of literature. 89 The Court was unimpressed. Acknowledging that historically religion held a prominent place in American society and government, the Court nonetheless proclaimed that the principle of religious freedom was equally vital given the religious pluralism of American society. 90 In the majority opinion, Justice Tom Clark rejected unequivocally the notion that government could aid or support religion without violating the Establishment Clause, even if it did so in a non-preferential manner. 91 In the twenty years preceding Schempp, the Court heard at least seven Establishment Clause cases, each time reaffirming the principles announced in Everson. 92 Summarizing the Court s Establishment Clause jurisprudence, Justice Clark formulated an endorsement test, which would later become part of the Lemon 82. Id. 83. Id. 84. Schempp, 374 U.S. at See id. at n Id. 87. Id. 88. Id. at Schempp, 374 U.S. at Id. at 214. The Court noted that there were eighty-three religious groups in America that had over 50,000 members, as well as many smaller religious sects. Id. 91. Id. at See id. at 222. Justice Clark mentions that there were eight cases, and he starts with Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), instead of Everson. Among the cases discussed by Clark were Everson, Engel, and Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), in which the Warren Court invalidated a state requirement that officeholders proclaim a belief in God. Schempp, 374 U.S. at 220.

12 602 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 test: 93 to be constitutional, the law or governmental action must have a secular purpose and could neither advance nor inhibit religion. 94 Applying Justice Clark s test to the facts in Schempp, the majority held the Establishment Clause had been violated. 95 By requiring public school students to read Bible verses and recite the Lord s Prayer in the classroom as part of a state-prescribed curriculum, Pennsylvania had impermissibly mandated students to partake in religious exercises. 96 Just as in Engel, the Court found the mere fact that students could be excused from participation did not cure the statute s unconstitutionality. Furthermore, the Court resisted the temptation to deem the practices acceptable because they were minor encroachments upon religious liberty. 97 After all, as Madison wrote in Memorial and Remonstrance, what might begin as a de minimis encroachment upon one s rights could easily become a larger encroachment. 98 The implication was clear: any establishment of religion is merely an invitation to religious conflict and a step toward religious persecution. Moreover, Justice Brennan s concurrence seemed to embrace the argument that the prayers were inherently coercive. Though children could theoretically opt out of the religious exercises, Justice Brennan professed a belief that very few children would actually do so, 99 for children would be placed in the difficult position of choosing to follow their religious beliefs or conforming to peer norms. 100 Fearing that they would be ostracized or labeled as atheists or other unfavorable terms, most children would silently suffer the religious exercises rather than risk being stigmatized or ostracized by their peers. 101 For Justice Brennan, whether the Founders would have approved of prayer and Bible reading in public schools was not only unable to be known with any 93. The test was formulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), a case involving state aid to religious schools. Id. at 603. The test was a synthesis of three tests the Court had used at that time to determine whether the Establishment Clause had been violated. The law had to have a secular purpose, could neither advance nor inhibit religion, and could not excessively entangle government with religion. Id. at Schempp, 374 U.S. at 222. Justice Sandra Day O Connor refined the endorsement test in County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 628 (1989) (O Connor, J., concurring). Her twopart test asked first whether government actually intended to endorse or show disapproval of a religion. If so, it violated the Establishment Clause. However, even if the government did not violate the first prong of the test, its actions could still be found unconstitutional if a reasonable person perceived its primary effect as advancing religion. Minard, supra note 1, at Schempp, 374 U.S. at Id. at Id. at Id. 99. Id. at (Brennan, J., concurring) Schempp, 374 U.S. at (Brennan, J., concurring) Id. at

13 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 603 certainty, 102 but it was also irrelevant. America had grown more religiously diverse than the Founders likely ever imagined. 103 This religious pluralism made it virtually impossible for a state to prescribe a prayer that would not offend the religious liberties of some group. 104 Invoking Chief Justice John Marshall s famous phrase that it is a constitution we are expounding, Justice Brennan asserted that the Court s role is to translate the protections of the First Amendment to modern society. 105 The Court should not focus on whether the Founders would have specifically approved of the school s practices; instead it should determine whether the practices in question were likely to produce the consequences the Founders had hoped the Establishment Clause would prevent. 106 And among those consequences (those evils as Justice Black described them in Everson 107 ), are religious divisiveness and persecution. D. The Interplay Between Endorsement and Coercion Though the Court in Engel and Schempp only tangentially addressed the issue of coercion, 108 a coercion test became integral to Establishment Clause jurisprudence in Lee v. Weisman. 109 The issue in Weisman was whether a school district s practice of inviting clergy to give an invocation and benediction at graduation violated the Establishment Clause. 110 Daniel Weisman first complained of the practice when Robert E. Lee, principal at Nathan Bishop Middle School, invited a Baptist minister to give the invocation at the school s graduation in which one of Weisman s daughters was 102. Id. at Justice Brennan listed several problems with interpreting the Framers intent. For consistency, I have chosen the word Founders, as it also includes Thomas Jefferson. Among the problems cited by Justice Brennan was a lack of clarity as to what each of the Founders thought. Moreover, Justice Brennan thought it impossible to know what the Founders would have thought about prayer in public schools because public schools had not existed in their time. Id. at See id. at Id. at Schempp, 374 U.S. at 241 (quoting McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 407 (1819)) (Brennan, J., concurring) Id. at See Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, (1947) The majority in Engel acknowledged that coercion naturally results anytime government endorses one religion or one religious sect over another. The Court in Schempp does not directly discuss coercion. However, the Court s slippery slope argument that de minimis violations of religious liberty can lead to full-scale religious persecution hints that the Court considered establishment inherently coercive. Justice Brennan s concurrence, of course, explicitly describes the coercive aspect of the prayers and Bible reading Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992) Id. at 581.

14 604 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 participating. 111 Weisman was unsuccessful in obtaining a court injunction. 112 Only three years later, the issue arose once again because another Weisman daughter was graduating. 113 This time Principal Lee invited a rabbi, perhaps believing this would placate the Weismans, who were Jewish. 114 He was wrong. 115 Justice Anthony Kennedy penned the opinion of the Court, which held that at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which establishes a [state] religion or religious faith or tends to do so. 116 Justice Kennedy focused on the school s endorsement of the religious exercise and the coercive element that arose as a result. 117 Here, the school s involvement in the religious exercise was pervasive. 118 Principal Lee had selected a religious speaker to give a religious message at a public school function supervised by public school officials. 119 Moreover, Lee gave the rabbi guidelines for the prayer and informed him that the prayer should be nonsectarian. 120 Though Lee s directive to have a nonsectarian prayer was a good faith effort to appeal to all religious believers, it did not alleviate the fact that the prayer bore the imprint of the State. 121 Additionally, just as the Engel and Schempp Courts reasoned that the ability to be excused from participating in prayers or Bible reading did not remedy the Establishment Clause violation, 122 Justice Kennedy rejected the argument that the prayers were acceptable because graduation was voluntary. 123 After all, given the years of hard work that students put in to attain graduation, as well as the importance of the occasion to the students families, few students would forgo the event MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT: COURTS, KIDS, AND THE CONSTITUTION 283 (Peter Irons ed., 2000) Id. The Weismans attended the graduation. Weisman, 505 U.S. at MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT, supra note Id Id Weisman, 505 U.S. at 587 (emphasis added) (quoting Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 678 (1984)) Id. at Id. at See id. at Id. at Weisman, 505 U.S. at See supra Part I.C and accompanying text Weisman, 505 U.S. at Id. at 586, 595. Justice Kennedy wrote that, given the circumstances, the school ha[d] compelled attendance and participation in an explicit religious exercise at an event of singular importance to every student, one the objecting student had no real alternative to avoid. Id. at 598.

15 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 605 Justice Kennedy then shifted to the subtle but inherently coercive elements of the prayer: What to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices, in a school context may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy.... The undeniable fact is that the school district s supervision and control of a high school graduation ceremony places public pressure, as well as peer pressure, on attending students to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence during the invocation and benediction.... Of course, in our culture standing or remaining silent can signify adherence to a view or simple respect for the views of others. And no doubt some persons who have no desire to join a prayer have little objection to standing as a sign of respect for those who do. But for the dissenter of high school age, who has a reasonable perception that she is being forced by the State to pray in a manner her conscience will not allow, the injury is no less real. 125 Distinguishing the case at bar from Marsh v. Chambers, where the Court found that prayers offered at the opening of a state legislature did not violate the Establishment Clause, 126 Justice Kennedy emphasized that Congressmen were free to come and go at any time and that there would be many reasons for them to do so. 127 In contrast, the students in Weisman had little personal autonomy at the graduation ceremony; the school controlled the choice of venue, the selection and order of the speakers, the dress code and the organization of the ceremony. 128 Students were not free to leave as they pleased but were faced with a Hobson s choice: stand for the prayer or protest. 129 The brevity of the prayer in no way lessened the severity of the encroachment. To argue that a brief prayer is only a minor inconvenience or trivial encroachment upon one s religious liberty is to diminish not only the religious beliefs of the dissenter but also to diminish the importance of the prayer to those who support it. 130 Finally, Justice Kennedy again dismissed the argument that religious dissenters could avoid the prayers by staying home. Government, he noted, may not force people to surrender their constitutional rights to attend graduation. 131 Interestingly, though Justice Kennedy s opinion expressly states that it is not addressing whether adults could be coerced, 132 it does not reject such a premise either, for it acknowledges that Establishment Clause concerns may 125. Id. at Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 793 (1984) Weisman, 505 U.S. at See id. at Id. at Id. at Id. at Weisman, 505 U.S. at 593.

16 606 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 not be limited to the context of schools, [though] it is most pronounced there. 133 Nevertheless, Justice Kennedy was clear that coercion was sufficient but not necessary to find an Establishment Clause violation. Echoing Madison s concern that establishment of religion is but a step toward religious persecution, Justice Kennedy wrote that history had repeatedly shown that what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce. 134 In Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 135 the most recent school prayer case to reach the Court, coercion was again an integral part of the Court s Establishment Clause analysis. Santa Fe, Texas, located approximately thirty miles southeast of Houston, is a town with a largely white, homogeneous population, a history of racial tension 136 and an alleged longstanding tradition of ignoring Establishment Clause violations. 137 The controversy stemmed from the Santa Fe Independent School District s (the District ) practice of allowing the Santa Fe High School student council chaplain to offer prayers over the District s public address system before home football games. 138 After the constitutionality of this practice was challenged by two students, both of whom were members of religious minorities, 139 the District amended its Prayer at Football Games policy. 140 The new policy put the issue to a vote. 141 Students would be allowed to vote on whether a statement or invocation should be delivered before each football game to solemnize the event, and, if so, students would then choose the speaker. 142 The policy stipulated that the message and/or invocation would be left to the elected speaker s discretion. 143 Despite the changes in the school policy, the district court, guided by the Court s reasoning in Lee v. Weisman, held that the practice of delivering prayers before football games coerced students to participate in religious 133. Id. at Id. at Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000) IRONS, supra note 16, at 137. The fact that Santa Fe is white has much to do with the town s history of racial animosity. Though neighboring towns are nearly one-third black, Santa Fe is ninety-five percent white. Its homogeneity also stretches to its religious composition, with only one Jewish family in the town. Id. at See Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at 295 (noting the District s alleged history of promoting religion, such as encouraging students to join religious clubs or attend religious revivals, distributing Bibles on school grounds, and letting students deliver prayers during graduation ceremonies) Id. at Id. One of the students was Mormon; the other was Catholic. Id Id. at Id. at Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at n Id. at 298.

17 2009] ESTABLISHMENT AND EXCLUSION 607 exercises and therefore violated the Establishment Clause. 144 The court of appeals affirmed based upon Fifth Circuit precedent that school-encouraged prayer at school-related sporting events ran afoul of the Establishment Clause. 145 Writing for the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens held the District s prayer policy unconstitutional. 146 Much like the district court had done, Justice Stevens applied the principles of Weisman. 147 He disagreed with the District s assertion that it had properly divorced itself from the religious messages through its claim that any religious messages would be the students private speech. 148 Rather, the signs signifying the school s endorsement of the religious messages were plainly visible to any reasonable person: the school policy created a limited forum where only one speaker could give the message; the message was subject to the school district s regulations; the policy s use of the words invocation and solemnize contained religious overtones; and the message was delivered at a school event on school property over the school s public address system that was under the control of school officials. 149 Based upon the totality of the circumstances, including the district s history of supporting prayer, it was clear that the school was endorsing a particular religious practice. In doing so, the District sent the message to those in the religious minority that they [were] outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. 150 The District also failed in its attempt to distinguish Weisman by arguing that attendance at football games was voluntary. 151 For those students who were athletes, cheerleaders or band members, attendance at the pre-game ceremony was mandatory. 152 Moreover, Justice Stevens maintained that such events were extremely important rituals to high school students, and students should not be forced to choose between isolating themselves socially and avoiding personally offensive religious rituals. 153 Such a choice violated a tenet of the First Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to state-sponsored religious practice. 154 Finally, Justice Stevens lambasted the 144. Id. at Id. at Id. at Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at Id. at Id. at Id. at (quoting Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 688 (1984)) Id. at Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at Id Id. (quoting Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 596 (1992)).

18 608 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW [Vol. XXVIII:591 election process adopted by the District. 155 The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to forbid one from surrendering his fundamental rights to the majority. 156 The District s election process ensured that the only religious views that would be heard were those of the majority. 157 The majoritarian nature of the process also stimulated divisiveness between religious groups. 158 Thus, the District violated the central purpose of the Establishment Clause to prevent religious strife. II. EXTENDING THE PROTECTIONS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE TO ADULTS A. The Case of Warnock v. Archer Background Facts In the fall of 1997, Steve Warnock joined the DeValls Bluff School District where he worked as an art teacher and part-time bus driver. 159 Warnock alleged that the school carried on various religious practices, which included reading the Bible over the school public address system at the beginning of each school day and offering prayers at mandatory employee meetings and trainings. 160 The prayers were generally delivered by Charles Archer, the school district superintendent (who had hired Warnock), though other individuals in charge of trainings sometimes offered the prayers. 161 Warnock objected to Archer about the prayers, but his concerns fell on deaf ears. Only after Warnock requested legal assistance from the ACLU did the practice of Bible reading end. 162 However, the other prayers continued despite Warnock s repeated requests to Archer that they be stopped. 163 At one point, when Archer was going to give a prayer at the faculty convocation, Warnock rose and voiced his objection again: I said, Mr. Archer, it s against the law to pray, you know, establish a religion in school and pray. And he turns and his body was taunt [sic] with me, and this was in front of the whole faculty, and he looks at me, he goes, yes, Mr Id. at Id. at ; W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943) Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at Id. at Brief of Appellee at 4 5, Warnock v. Archer, Nos , (8th Cir. Sept. 1, 2003) Id. at 4. One of Warnock s colleagues, Mary Craig, confirmed his belief that religion pervaded the school atmosphere. She noted colleagues repeatedly asked her whether she was a Christian, and she claimed the perception among the faculty was that a person who was not a Christian was a bad person. Id. at Id. at 4. See also Warnock v. Archer, 380 F.3d 1076, 1079 (8th Cir. 2004) Brief of Appellee, supra note 159, at 13. The readings stopped in October 1998 before the ACLU could pursue legal action. Id Id.